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I grew up in the 80s with McCoy and Tom Baker and Peter Davison repeats and remember very little of Colin Baker. I have since seen all his stories very recently except the dalek one (copyright issue with Terry Nation I assume).

I didn't mind his "dark" portrayal as I already knew about the Vale Yard. I could imagine adults in the mid-80s being shocked, though. The costume suited him and I lapped up his arrogant performance. He played the character he was given almost to perfection, IMO. I always had a soft spot for Peri, too.

His 1st season was outstanding I thought, perhaps with the exception of "Time Lash".

Trial of a Timelord was a master stroke, with Michael Jayston and Linda Bellingham putting in the best performances I've seen in Dr Who. Pity about the anti-climactic ending in "The Ultimate Foe". Then Colin got shafted because of ratings.

All in all, rediscovering the 6th Doctor has been a joy for me, as I'd previously seen very little of him and I admit my impression of him had been negative due to me letting the bad publicity affect my judgement.

I have to admit to being one of those Doctor Who fans who started out disliking Colin Baker's portrayal of the Doctor. He was irritating, loud and had monumentally bad fashion sense.

One explanation that I remember reading, when he assumed the role, was that his regeneration was supposed to be unstable. If memory serves it was something to do with the spider venom from Caves of Androzani.

After watching the episodes over the years, my opinion of him changed considerably. It just took me some time to get past his mood swings and begin to appreciate the fact that the core of the Doctor's character was still intact.

Personally, I think Sylvester McCoy was far worse in the role. He is most assuredly my least favorite Doctor.

[Quote by: seanhuxter] .
Also there is a world of difference between his TV portrayal and his more recent audio work for Big Finish.

It's almost like a new regeneration into a new Colin Baker Doctor. He's far more sympathetic, and likeable, less irritated, and far more compassionate.

I think that many people think that Baker's audio Doctor work far exceeds his TV Doctor work.

Sean.

Perhaps given time, his character would have been more like this in the TV series... When I first met Colin Baker during his first season (series) as the Doctor, his plan was stay in the role for at least 8 seasons... (he didn't spell it out like that, but he did say he planned on staying in the role longer than a previous actor in the role that shared the same sir name... something like that)... I suspect that he and JNT planned on smoothing his character out bit during the course of his tenure... to what extent, I am unsure. Too bad it never happened.

Though, I have to say, I did not have any problems with him being temperamental and crotchety ... it reflected back to the early Hartnell. It added that extra dimension... because we knew it was really on the surface level.

Totally unrelated, but speaking of Colin Baker, I recently purchased a show flier from the UK of a Ray Cooney show (autographed by the author) for a present to my director and Colin Baker was in the production!

I loved Colin Baker as the Doctor, and I was very sad that he was forced to leave the part so soon. His potrayal actually got me back into the show as a teenager, after having stopped watching when Tom Baker left (I was around eight and couldn't figure out why the new guy didn't look the same or have a scarf ).

Looking back, I can see many of the issues others have pointed out with Colin Baker's era, but I still always enjoy his performance. Maybe it's because I'm something of an introvert, but I'm usually fascinated by big, brash personalities.

And interestingly...I didn't seem to mind the coat when I first saw it either. Anyway, I'm happy he's doing the audios, and I'd love to have a chance to see him perform in theater one day.